Internal battery life of Gameboy cartridge

[skyknight]

OK, I got the original Tetris for Gameboy, and I notice the high scores are never kept, so I am guessing that the battery has probably died out.

Anyone know the battery life for GB family cartridge?

[slowslow325]

Tetris doesn't keep the high scores, there is no internal battery.

[noiseredux]

Tetris doesn't keep the high scores, there is no internal battery.

this is correct. Tetris DX (GBC) fixed that problem.

[Ziggy]

It's just like every other "high scores" game of that era. The scores were never saved!

[Jungell]

It's just like every other "high scores" game of that era. The scores were never saved!

Which really makes you wonder why they included it in the first place...

[slowslow325]

It's just like every other "high scores" game of that era. The scores were never saved!

Which really makes you wonder why they included it in the first place...

Obviously when you pass the GameBoy around to your friends and they play.

So the kids can know which number was higher, 8,000 or 3,245.

[noiseredux]

they figured out the battery thing very shortly afterwards... FF Legend is the first GB game I can THINK of that had battery backup. I'm not positive which was technically the first.

[Ziggy]

It's just like every other "high scores" game of that era. The scores were never saved!

Which really makes you wonder why they included it in the first place...

Probably because of arcades. Arcades saved high scores. Video games back then were made to be more like arcade games, and a lot of them WERE arcade games.

[MrPopo]

they figured out the battery thing very shortly afterwards... FF Legend is the first GB game I can THINK of that had battery backup. I'm not positive which was technically the first.

I think you're right on that point. SaGa came out 8 months after the Game Boy did, so I'd be shocked if there were many other games out by then who would even have a reason for a battery backed save.

[slowslow325]

they figured out the battery thing very shortly afterwards... FF Legend is the first GB game I can THINK of that had battery backup. I'm not positive which was technically the first.

I don't think it's because they "figured it out" as they knew how to do it in NES carts, and it's the same thing in GB carts, I think that if the game only needed it for a small feature that doesn't affect gameplay (like high scores) they just left it out as it saves money and made them more profit.